Finleigh
Feminine · “fair-haired warrior”
Finleigh dresses Finley in the -leigh ending, and the Irish name behind it is a fair-haired warrior.
How old is the name Finleigh?
Finleigh first appears in US birth records in 2005 — 20 years ago. The typical Finleigh is a kid of about 8 — this name's wave is very recent. About 1,100 people named Finleigh are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Finleigh most popular?
Finleigh peaked in 2015, reaching #1861 nationally. Today it ranks #4546, 2,685 places below that high. See the whole 2015 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
Origin, sound and short forms
Our story of Finleigh
Ours, offered as ours. Fionn is one of the most productive elements in Irish naming — Fionn mac Cumhaill, Finnegan, Finola, Fintan — and it means both fair-colored and bright or blessed, the two senses being the same idea to the people who used it. The -leigh substitution is doing something else entirely: it imports an English place-name ending purely for the look of it, and the Irish warrior underneath survives anyway.
Meaning
fair-haired warrior
From Irish and Scottish Fionnlagh, joining fionn, fair or bright, to laogh, a warrior or hero. The -leigh spelling substitutes an English word for a woodland clearing, which is unrelated to the original ending.
Pronouncing Finleigh
FIN-lee
Two syllables, first stressed. Finleigh, Finley and Finlay are said identically.
Nicknames for Finleigh
Moderate
What the data says
146 years of official birth records
The long climb, and where it stands now
The same years in position rather than babies
- First recorded
- 2005
- Most girls named
- 2015110 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1861reached in 2015
- Change vs 2024
- −18.9%30 in 2025, from 37
Rank is a position, a count is a headcount, and they move independently — a name can hold its rank while the number of babies behind it falls. Source: U.S. Social Security Administration.
Finleigh in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Fionnlagh in Irish — related form
- Finley in English — spelling variant
- Finlay in English — spelling variant
Strongest US states over the last decade: Texas, Illinois, North Carolina.
Finleighs among us
people named Finleigh are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 53,576 born in 2025 was named Finleigh
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Finleigh
- #4546
- Finleigh on the 2025 chart
- #920
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Finleigh went to 30 girls in 2025, but Finnleigh is the same name said out loud. Together the 2 spellings went to 40, which makes it the 920th most-given girls’ name of the year — 3,626 places above the chart.
- Finleigh30
- Finnleigh10
About 1 girl in 40,182 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 53,576 for Finleigh itself.
Spellings are grouped by a fixed rule that folds interchangeable English spellings of one sound (ck/k, ph/f, x/ks, a non-initial y for i) and keeps vowels apart, so Sean and Shawn stay separate names. It errs towards splitting: a family here is never larger than the truth. SSA national data, 2025. Method
Is it right for you
What happens to a name after it peaks
The Brennan test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Finleigh's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Brennan climbed just as high around 1994, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Brennan's path sketches the road Finleigh is walking now.
Finleigh sits in the calm middle of the cycle — neither chasing a wave nor sliding off one. Middle-of-the-cycle names age slowly and predictably.
A scored estimate from 146 years of naming cycles — not a prophecy. Great names outlive statistics. How this is scored
Where Finleigh is headed
Finleigh is easing off slowly — about 33% fewer babies a year by 2030 if the trend continues. Its history is short or jumpy, though, so read this as a sketch rather than a promise.
Low confidence — fitted on official counts through 2025.
A damped-trend projection of the official birth data — a sketch of momentum, not a promise. Every name's forecast, ranked.
Finleigh beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Finleigh in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- A settled Irish meaning with both elements clearly attested.
- Fin and Finn are both plain short forms that work from childhood on.
- Read correctly by English speakers once they have seen it once.
- Finley is the standard spelling and will be written for her constantly.
- The -leigh ending is imported and unrelated to the Irish original.
- It is used for both sexes, so forms may guess wrong.
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Finleigh
Feminine · #4546 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Finleighs are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 1,100 people named Finleigh are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Finleigh?
- Finleigh is the most-used spelling in US records — 30 of the 40 babies given the name in 2025. The others recorded are Finnleigh.
- How popular is the name Finleigh in 2025?
- Finleigh ranks #4546 among US girl names in 2025, with 30 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Finleigh?
- About 1 in every 53,576 US girls born in 2025 was named Finleigh — 30 in all.
- Will my child share the name Finleigh with classmates?
- Finleigh will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Finleigh
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Amie#4546 · Rashell#4546 · Renatta#4546 · Raisa#4546 · Amena#4546 · Aryn#4546 · Nadiya#4546 · Jeanne#4546
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Finleigh? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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